Method, System, Apparatus, and Computer Program Product for Determining a Physical Location of a Sensor

1. A method for determining a physical location of an unknown position device (UPD) in a communication network, the communication network including plural known position devices (KPDs), said method comprising: storing known potential locations of the UPD, the known potential locations related to known positions of utility service lines; receiving a message transmitted by the UPD at least one of the plural KPDs; measuring a signal quality of the message received from the UPD by the at least one of the plural KPDs; and transmitting a data message from the at least one of the plural KPDs to a regional network interface, the data message including the signal quality; computing, at the regional network interface, an approximate physical location of the UPD based on a physical location of the at least one of the plural KPDs and the signal quality measured at the at least one of the plural KPDs; and producing a list of likely locations of the UPD based on the approximate physical location of the UPD and the known potential locations of the UPD, wherein the known potential locations include a physical location of a sensor that was suspected of exhibiting an error condition or was suspected of being tampered with.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the measuring the signal quality comprises measuring at least one of a signal to noise ratio (SNR), a receiver quieting, or a bit error rate (BER) of the message.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the UPD is a utility meter.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving a tamper message including a unique identifier of a tampered device in the communication network, wherein the computing comprises computing the approximate physical location of the UPD based on the unique identifier of the tampered device.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the known potential locations of the UPD include locations of existing utility meters or existing utility meter sockets.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the known potential locations include at least one of street addresses of customers which receive service and street addresses of customers which do not receive service.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transmitting the data message from the at least one of the plural KPDs comprises transmitting the data message at a time period after the message is received from the UPD, the time period based on whether the signal quality of the message received from the UPD is above or below one or more signal quality thresholds.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising: transmitting an acknowledgement to the plural KPDs after the data message from the at least one of the plural KPDs is transmitted, the acknowledgement including a unique identifier of the UPD; and updating a transmission queue of each of the plural KPDs based on the unique identifier included in the acknowledgement.

9. A method, implemented by a regional network interface, for determining a physical location of an unknown position device (UPD) in a communication network, said method comprising: storing known potential locations of the UPD, the known potential locations related to known positions of utility service lines; receiving, at the regional network interface, a first message from each of plural known position devices (KPDs) in the communication network, each of the first messages including a signal quality of a second message, each second message received by a respective KPD from the UPD; computing an approximate physical location of the UPD based on a physical location of each of the plural KPDs and the signal quality of the second message received from each of the plural KPDs; and producing a list of likely locations of the UPD based on the approximate physical location of the UPD and the known potential locations of the UPD, wherein the known potential locations include a physical location of a sensor that was suspected of exhibiting an error condition or was suspected of being tampered with.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the receiving the first messages comprises receiving signal quality information based on at least one of a UPD signal to noise ratio (SNR), a UPD receiver quieting, or a UPD bit error rate (BER) of the second message as measured at each of the plural KPDs, and the computing further comprises computing the approximate physical location of the UPD based on at least one of the UPD SNR, the UPD receiver quieting, or the UPD BER.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the computing comprises performing at least one of a triangulation algorithm, a multilateration algorithm, or a center of mass algorithm based on the signal quality of the second message as measured at each of the plural KPDs to compute the approximate physical location of the UPD.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the UPD includes a utility meter.

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein the computing comprises computing the approximate physical location of the UPD based on locations of the plural KPDs in the communication network.

14. The method of claim 9 , further comprising: receiving a tamper message including a unique identifier of a tampered device in the communication network, wherein the computing comprises computing the approximate physical location of the UPD based on the unique identifier of the tampered device.

15. A regional network interface (RNI) device in a communication network that includes plural known position devices (KPDs) and an unknown position device (UPD), the RNI comprising: a receiving unit configured to receive a first message from each of the plural KPDs in the communication network, each of the first messages including a signal quality of a second message, each second message received by a respective KPD from the UPD; and a computing unit configured to compute an approximate physical location of the UPD, the approximate physical location being computed based on a physical location of each of the plural KPDs and the signal quality of the second message received from each of the plural KPDs, and produce a list of likely locations of the UPD based on the approximate physical location of the UPD and known potential locations of the UPD, the known potential locations related to known positions of utility service lines, wherein the known potential locations include a physical location of a sensor that was suspected of exhibiting an error condition or was suspected of being tampered with.

16. The RNI of claim 15 , wherein, the receiving unit is configured to receive the first messages including signal quality information based on at least one of a UPD signal to noise ratio (SNR), a UPD receiver quieting, or a UPD bit error rate (BER) of the second message as measured at each of the plural KPDs, and the computing unit is further configured to compute the approximate physical location of the UPD based on at least one of the UPD SNR, the UPD receiver quieting, or the UPD BER.

17. The RNI of claim 15 , wherein the computing unit is configured to perform at least one of a triangulation algorithm, a multilateration algorithm, or a center of mass algorithm based on the signal quality to compute the approximate physical location of the UPD.

18. The RNI of claim 15 , further comprising: a tamper message receiving unit configured to receive a tamper message including a unique identifier of a tampered device in the communication network, wherein the computing unit is further configured to compute the approximate physical location of the UPD based on the unique identifier of the tampered device.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program instructions which, when executed by a computer to determine a physical location of an unknown position device (UPD) in a communication network, result in the computer performing the functions of: receiving a first message from each of plural known position devices (KPDs) in the communication network, each of the first messages including a signal quality of a second message, each second message received by one of the plural KPDs from the UPD; computing an approximate physical location of the UPD based on a physical location of each of the plural KPDs and the signal quality of the second message received from each of the plural KPDs; and producing a list of likely locations of the UPD based on the approximate physical location of the UPD and known potential locations of the UPD, the known potential locations related to known positions of utility service lines, wherein the known potential locations include a physical location of a sensor that was suspected of exhibiting an error condition or was suspected of being tampered with.

20. A communication system, comprising: an unknown position device (UPD) configured to transmit a first message; plural known position devices (KPD) located at physical locations, each KPD including a KPD receiver unit configured to receive the first message from the unknown position device (UPD), a measurement unit configured to measure a received signal quality of the first message, and a transmitter unit configured to transmit a second message including the received signal quality measured by the measurement unit; and a regional network interface (RNI) including an RNI receiving unit configured to receive the second message from each of the plural KPDs, each second message including the received signal quality measured at the KPD from which the second message was transmitted, and a computing unit configured to compute an approximate physical location of the UPD, the approximate physical location being computed based on a physical location of each of the plural KPDs and the received signal quality of the first message measured at each of the plural KPDs, and to compute a list of likely locations of the UPD based on the approximate physical location of the UPD and known potential locations of the UPD, the known potential locations related to known positions of utility service lines, wherein the known potential locations include a physical location of a sensor that was suspected of exhibiting an error condition or was suspected of being tampered with.